Texas 288 feeder lanes beginning to appear (w/pix)

Strips of white concrete destined to become feeder roads are growing longer along Texas 288 in Pearland, and an official with the Texas Department of Transportation hopes the lanes can open to traffic within two months.

A paving machine is working its way along the feeder routes. After the lanes are completed, which may be next month, workers will install curbs and striping, said Larry Heckathorn, TxDOT’s area engineer.

He hopes the lanes could begin carrying traffic within 1 1/2 months to two months even though workers will still need to do ramp work.

To help speed things along, contractor Hassell Construction is using a strategy in which it moves the paving machine back and forth between the north-bound and south-bound feeder lanes, said Skipper Jones, the city of Pearland’s manager for the project.

“Ordinarily, what would happen is you pave the first sequence and pull off for 10 days waiting for the pavement to cure,” he said. “They’ve told us they are going to pick up their paving machine to the other side of the freeway so they can make progress during those curing times.”

The machine can pave 600-800 feet a day, Jones said.

Heckathorn said the current drought is beneficial for the feeder work and other Pearland road construction projects such as work on Cullen Boulevard and Dixie Farm Road.

“We could use the rain, but it helps us trying to build these jobs,” he said of the dry weather.